It’s not very often that Kobe Bryant is the third best player on the court, but that was the case on Sunday in Miami. LA came in desperately needing a win and that will pretty much be the case for the rest of the season. Bryant brought a newly armed Laker squad to the AAA, including Steve Nash and Dwight Howard, with the intention of making a statement that he and his team were not done yet in terms of making a run at the playoffs. Bryant did his part by leading the Lakers with 28 points on 11-19 shooting. Unfortunately for Kobe, there were two guys in Heat uniforms that were better. LeBron James finished with 32 points, while Dwyane Wade added 30. Both Heat stars shot 12-18 from the floor and Miami took down LA, 107-97.

This game wasn’t about the Lakers struggling. No, it was more about Miami being great. Dwyane Wade is the greatest player in Heat history, and during the past several games he has returned to form as one of the five best players in the NBA. LeBron, however, has reached an entirely new level of elite(if that’s possible). James just became the third player in NBA history to have five consecutive games of at least 30pts and 60%FG shooting. The other two were Moses Malone(1982) and Adrian Dantley(1979). In addition, Wade and Bron each scored at least 30pts twice in the last three games. Again, LA didn’t play a bad game, but Miami led by the very best duo on the planet, were just better.

During the past week the Heat have taken down some of the best teams in the West are 34-14 and now sit 2.5 games up on the Knicks for the #1 seed in the East. Meanwhile the Lakers dropped to 24-28 and 3.5 games out of the 8th and final spot in the West. Many “experts” expected these two teams to meet in the NBA Finals in June. Note to the Lakers; you can’t make The Finals if you don’t make the playoffs. Behind LeBron’s extraterrestrial play, Miami looks almost unstoppable en route to a third consecutive Finals’ appearance. Their biggest obstacles are injuries and the Indiana Pacers.